President-elect Donald Trump is set to move into the White House on Friday, but he might forgo the @POTUS Twitter handle in favor of his @realDonaldTrump handle.
Trump told The Times of London that he will probably keep his personal handle and doesn’t have any intention of altering his tweeting habit.
“@realDonaldTrump I think, I’ll keep it,” he said. “So I’ve got 46 million people right now — that’s a lot, that’s really a lot — but 46 million — including Facebook, Twitter and ya know, Instagram, so when you think that you’re 46 million there, I’d rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, it’s working.”
Trump continued, “And the tweeting, I thought I’d do less of it, but I’m covered so dishonestly by the press — so dishonestly — that I can put out Twitter — and it’s not 140, it’s now 280 — I can go bing bing bing . . . and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out — this morning on television, Fox — ‘Donald Trump, we have breaking news,’” Trump told the Times.
Trump’s spokeswoman did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
When President Obama created the @POTUS handle, it was publicly noted that he would pass the handle on to future presidents. However, Trump already has 20 million followers on Twitter alone, while @POTUS has 13.5 million and many of them are presumably Obama supporters who don’t particularly like Trump.
Trump also mentioned Twitter during Sunday’s edition of “NBC Nightly News” and said that he “thought” he would tweet less as president, but the dishonest media forces him to use social media to get his message to the people.
Trump has famously used Twitter to spread his message, attack critics, mock people on the other side of the aisle, and compliment supporters.